Always a Child
by anonymousghostwriter
Summary: PeterWendy. How I believe it should have been.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Peter Pan

Wendy Darling had grown to be quite a beautiful young woman. At the tender age of 16 she had graduated early from her finishing school and now, at 19, she was supposed to be living the domestic life with her husband. How terribly mundane would that be though? Instead, Wendy had begun writing her adventure novel in three parts, starting with the first collection dealing with the evil pirate Hook and the ever so clever Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up. The second, the story of her and her brothers joining Peter in Neverland. After publishing the first two sagas, she only had the last one to write. However, it was the most difficult as she had no idea what Peter was up to now that she had left and Hook had been defeated.

She had been living in a small apartment just a block from her parents home. Working for her Aunt Millicent in the parlor as a maid was not too boastful for a career, but being a woman in that era it was really all she could do. Plus, though the pay was just barely getting by, it gave her independence all the same. She could write as soon as she got home and did not have to worry about fussing over a hot stove for her dull husband and praying the children would behave themselves.

No, Wendy was not ready for that sort of rubbish just yet. She still had that child like gleam in her eye that had yet to be extinguished from the trials of adulthood. However, her hidden kiss was long gone, something her mother had noticed a week after her return from Neverland.

Her hand instantly shot to her neck where she traced the thing silver chain down until her fingertips brushed over the small acorn she still wore around her neck. Though it had almost rotted away over the years, she still kept it hidden under her dresses and plain to see when she wore her nightgowns, such as now. She felt a heartfelt longing, the one she felt every time she recalled her adventures in Neverland. However, over the years it was starting to get hazy. Peter's face was starting to become shadowed. The sound of his voice and laughter was forgotten. Even the grounds of Neverland was questionable, half way forcing her to wonder if she made up certain areas. All in all, she only remembered what she wrote down in her journals, using them as basis for her adventure novel. However, her additions to the true story just made her memory worse, questioning if any part of it were real or if it were all a dream. A dream so real that she merely believed it was.

Indeed Peter had long since forgotten about her. Something that pained her and she refused to think about too long. She had tried for so long to remember how to fly. If she could she would instantly go back to Neverland, slap Peter for his incompetence, and then have another adventure. But she was too old now, and the dreams of her innocent youth were ridiculous in her adult mind. She looked to her window, open as if in some pathetic last attempt to keep the dream alive. Looking back to the blank pages mocking her, she felt an instant surge of anger. Had he not promised to return to her? He had given his word that he would never forget. She had given him her hidden kiss! Apparently that meant nothing to him! Storming over to the window, she instantly drew them close as well as the curtains. Feeling temporarily satisfied, it only took her three minutes before she was up again and opening both in a sudden terror of 'what if.' Sinking to the floor in a pathetic heap, she shed tears once more. She had honestly loved him. Truly and deeply loved him. He had chosen to remain a boy while she chose to grow up. They were separated now, by time and age. She pulled her legs to her chest, resting her back against the wall, and looking towards the ceiling. "I have to face it," she spoke to the empty room, "he's never coming back."

She stood up and turned to face the window, intent on shutting them and locking for good. However, she was face to face with a tan young lad wearing leaves and twigs for clothes, his blue eyes looking into hers. "Wendy-lady?"

She promptly fainted.

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Blue eyes fluttered momentarily before fully opening. Her pupils rapidly adjusted to the dim light emitting from the oil lamp residing on her desk. She ran her fingers through her hair, wincing as she grazed over the bump left from her fall. It stung a little, but she doubted it was anywhere near grounds for a concussion.

Looking around the barren room, she saw no trace of what she believed had been the boy she spent so many nights brooding over. Her heart, still racing, suddenly ached. Had it been a trick of the mind, some sort of delusion forced from her mind? Seeing no ruminants of the lad, she reached her conclusion. However, she heard a slight whimper from the opposing end of the room. There, tucked away in the corner, sat a young man. He hadn't seem to notice her waking up. Cautiously she approached him. Kneeling before him she barely breathed out his name.

Looking up his eyes widened in shock. "You…you're alive!" He jumped to his feet, posing his hands on his hip as if he had someone defeated death. She could imagine him thinking how clever he was, and that alone twitched a small smile at the corner of her mouth. She looked at the boy before her, noting there was some sort of distinguishing difference in him she had not noticed until that moment.

"Peter, you've…you've grown up!" He immediately frowned at her suggestion and it was then she noticed that the child like gleam in his eye was gone.

He walked towards her, towering over her 5'5' frame with an even six feet. "That's why I came here. For answers!" He grabbed her arm non too delicately and ushered her to her chair where she was firmly seated. "I started growing up right after I took you and the lost boys back to your parents. Tinkerbell didn't say anything, neither did any of the Indians or mermaids, but I knew it was happening! I could see it! Why Wendy? What did you do to me?" He was practically shouting at her now.

Wendy blinked back tears, his rage scaring her. She had never seen such a fit from him before. "I…I don't know, Peter. Honestly!"

He scoffed and started pacing, mumbling things under his breath. Wendy fidgeted, uncomfortable before this side of Pan she, and she doubted anyone else, had ever witnessed before. It was then that she saw something about Peter that she had never took note of before. There, inconspicuously placed in the right hand corner of his mouth lay her hidden kiss. She barely breathed, "Oh Peter…you…you don't think it was…my fault you grew up?"

He slowly turned to her, gnashing his teeth almost rhythmically, "That's exactly why I'm here." Walking towards her, he knelt down and placed his hands upon her knees. Something that could be so tender was suddenly making her ill. "I never had this problem until you."

She let her tears fall freely now. So he did blame her. "But Peter, I didn't mean to…"

"It doesn't matter," he interrupted, "I should have never come here. Give you the satisfaction that you have ruined me." He turned to her, "And stop crying."

She tried, but she only started to hiccup in replacement. Pan ran his fingers through his shaggy sun kissed hair and let out a sigh. "I just want to know how to make it stop." He saw her confusion, "I want to be a boy again, Wendy. You made me a man, now make me a boy."

"But Peter, that's impossible. You can't just return to your youth again. It doesn't work that way."

"Then find a way!" he yelled at her again. She narrowed her eyes, having taken enough abuse.

"Peter, just because your body has grown into a mans does not mean that you have." He returned her glare.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Yes, your body has matured, but you still hold this childish mindset. Selfish, immature, and self pleasing. As long as you hold onto that, you will forever be a boy."

And for the first time that night, Peter had no reply.

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	2. Chapter 2

Peter sat dumbly before her, and Wendy made no move to start any form of conversation. Some may have seen it as a stubborn attempt on either side to force the other into some sort of apology, but in truth it was that neither knew where to go next. If he were to get up and leave, he would never have the answers to which he sought. However, if he were to stay, well, that was already proving futile as well. Wendy, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on. True she had always hoped Peter would one day again return to her, but her imagination never played this scene. She had pictured him throwing open the curtains and bounding handsomely into the room, in one hand a patch of weeds, for he had no true appreciation of flowers. In the other hand, he would hold a tiny kiss. She would cry gloriously before him and he would wrap her into his arms and whisper comforting things of love and marriage. Then they would return to Neverland and forever continue their adventures.

This was making her dreams wither and die faster than a mayfly. In fact, had she not been a lady, a few unsettling words might have been thrown at those fairy tale fantasies at this moment. But none of that mattered now to her. She could focus on her tattered dreams later, right now she had a serious problem to solve, and that was something only a once upon a time mother could do.

Seeing that Peter was not going to start addressing the problem, she took the first shot out into the dark. Apparently clearing her throat had worked since Peter's attention was immediately hers, though she found the problem was that she had acted before thinking of anything to say. Licking her lips, she decided to begin talking in hopes something worthwhile might come out. "Peter, I want to know… why did you never come back?"

"I am back." Such the child indeed.

"No, I mean before this. Peter, do you realize how many years have passed? You lied to me. You said you would come back." She lowered her head to stop the tears from showing but her quivering voice gave it away. "You just never came back."

He was silent. Utterly dumbfounded yet again and forced without reply or comfort. Not that he was much on comforting others, but for some unknown reason to himself, Peter found himself wishing for once for the perfect thing to say in order to turn the night around from the chaos he had undoubtedly brought.

"I…I thought…"

Her face snapped up and her deep blue eyes burned deeper than any flame. "No, Peter, you didn't think. You forgot about me! I know it! I can see it in your eyes."

He threw his head down like a child being reprimanded, and had Wendy not been so angry she would have felt some pity. But not now; he had lied and deceived her for the last time and she was through. "You don't care for anyone but yourself. Even now! You haven't seen me in so many years and the first thing upon arriving you kick and scream like an infant being removed from its sleep! Well, I just can't bear any more of this, this…I don't even know what this is!"

Now Peter had felt shame only a few times in his life prior to this night. But now it felt like a new feeling, or perhaps it was because he knew he wouldn't be allowed to forget this feeling in the upcoming moments. He was to sit there before his Wendy and accept his punishment until she was satisfied. So he waited.

"And besides, I don't know why you would think I would know why you are growing up! I haven't seen you! I don't know what you did with your life! Do you think I keep tabs on you anymore? I've grown up Peter! I'm done telling the tale of your mockery of a legacy."

He pointed to her papers on her table. "Then what are those."

"Those are…wait. How do you know about those?"

He began to study his bare feet finding disgust in the blistered and dirty shame they were. Upon hearing his name, he looked back to Wendy to find a questioning gaze upon her. "What?"

"I asked you, have you been spying on me?" For the first time in what seemed forever, she felt some rash feeling of hope and desperation. True, she was still mad, but he need not know how much it would mean to her if he had been.

"Not often, only after Tinkerbell died…I thought you might like to help me find a new fairy. But you had…you know…"

"Grown?"

"Yeah."

"But Peter, weren't you growing then too?"

He started slowly, as if ashamed. "Yeah."

"Then why didn't you see me?"

He looked down, "Every time I see you, it ends badly."

Now Wendy let her tears fall. "You…you wretched little boy! How could you say such things? Have you no compassion to spare my feelings?"

He ran his finger below her eye, leaving a dirty smudge but succeeding in removing her tear. "Don't cry Wendy. It's just that…it's not that I don't enjoy our adventures, but look behind us. We are not compatible with one another…it always ends in hurt feelings.

"And life lessons," she interrupted.

"We have enough of those already…when do they stop?"

She looked up at him, his naïve question reminding her of their past. "They don't." He nodded.

He turned his attention back to her papers scattered at random on her desk. Deciding to take a closer look, he began rummaging through them, staring at them individually until he felt satisfied. Wendy, who knew Peter could not read, wondered what he thought of them. She had a knack of speaking aloud when she wrote, so it was apparent he knew what she was doing. "What are you thinking about?"

"Why you would waste time writing about me if you hate me."

Wendy sighed lightly, "I don't hate you Peter. I just find you…unbearable at times."

"Oh," he turned quickly to her, a smile pasted across his lips as bright as the sun. "So then, what will you write of next?"

She sat herself upon the edge of her bed, "I'm not entirely sure yet, I haven't any other adventures to speak of."

"Well then, we must make one so that you may write one. Come with me!"

"But Peter…I have commitments here, I can't just up and leave for Neverland like I used to."

"Hush," he covered her mouth with a dirty hand and Wendy felt nauseous upon wondering what earthen creatures of the soil he might have been toying with earlier. "Consider it a business deal then old lady. You have your story and I get my answer."

"PETER I AM NOT AN OLD LADYYYYYYYY!" Before she could finish he had scooped her in his arms and flew out the window, determined to begin their adventure immediately.


End file.
